About
For over 85 years, the Jerdon’s Courser was thought to be extinct until it was sensationally rediscovered in 1986.
For this reason, very little is known about the bird’s ecology. It is known to be nocturnal and feed on insects, which it hunts by sight. The population is tentatively estimated at 50 to 249 adults, but further surveys are needed to determine range, numbers and threats. The number of people inhabiting important areas of habitat for the Jerdon’s courser continues to grow. Settlers put demands on local natural resources by collecting wood, introducing grazing mammals and clearing habitat for farmland. Illegal trapping of ground birds has also been recorded in the region where it is known to occur. Suitable areas of habitat are disappearing and those that exist are severely fragmented. A species recovery plan was published in 2010, detailing priority conservation actions for the Jerdon’s courser, which have since received bolstering publications, though it desperately needs to be implemented to protect this critically endangered species.
- Order: Charadriiformes
- Family: Glareolidae
- Population: 70-400
- Trend: decreasing
- Size: 27cm
EDGE Score
Distribution
They are endemic to India, and found in the Eastern Ghats of Andra Pardesh.
Habitat and Ecology
They inhabit scrub forest of thorny and non-thorny plants, with bare patches of earth. They are insectivorous, hunting invertebrates by sight.
